After back to back cup matches, Manchester City return to the Premier League having progressed to the fourth round of the FA Cup with a 3-0 win away to Norwich at the weekend. Despite falling to defeat in the Capital One Cup last Wednesday, Manchester City have an excellent record against Everton since Roberto Martinez became manager and they're unbeaten in their last five league matches against Everton (W4, D1). This will be the first home fixture of the 2016 for Manchester City after they took all three points in 16 of the 20 league fixtures at the Etihad Stadium in 2015 (D1, L3) but Manuel Pellegrini's side have failed to keep a clean sheet in any of their last eight home Premier League fixtures which is their longest league run without a clean sheet since October 1991 (13 matches). Manchester City have actually only kept three clean sheets in their last 15 Premier League matches and all of those came away from home in the form of a 0-0 draw (Manchester United, Aston Villa, Leicester).

This is a somewhat harsh comparison considering the injury troubles which have plagued Sergio Aguero this season, though that isn't unusual with the Argentine. Romelu Lukaku is the top scorer in the premier league this season with 15 goals whilst he has also garnered 5 assists to his name which is equal to the amount he assisted in the Premier League last season. This season, Lukaku has created 30 chances for his teammates in the Premier League which is significantly more than Aguero (7) and only second to Ross Barkley (34) in the Everton squad. Aguero has had the higher percentage of shots on target with 28 of his 47 shots finding the target compared to 38 of Lukaku's 70 shots whilst he also narrowly beats Lukaku in terms of successful dribbles but it's in the statistic of aerial duels where Lukaku shines, winning 2.25 headers per90 with Aguero's numbers are unsurprisingly lower (0.31). However, the Manchester City striker posts a significantly higher pass completion rate (89%) compared to the Belgian (75%).

Possible Line-Ups

Everton

Since their last outing in the Premier League, Everton enjoyed back to back victories at Goodison Park with wins over their upcoming opponents Manchester City in the Capital One Cup along with a comfortable victory against Dagenham & Redbridge in the FA Cup. Despite beating Manchester City last Wednesday Evening, Roberto Martinez is still yet to taste victory over City in a league fixture as both of his successes have come in cup competition whilst he has lost 11 of the 13 league meetings and fallen to defeat in all of his away fixtures against Everton's upcoming opponents. Despite all that, Manchester City are statistically Everton's second favourite opposition in the Premier League with the Toffees enjoying victory on 17 occasions, the only team they've beaten more often is West Ham (22). Manchester City's failure to keep a clean sheet at home should mean goals in this fixture because Everton have scored in each of their last 11 Premier League matches which is currently the longest run of any side and six of those matches have come away from Goodison Park. Everton's last victory on the blue half of Manchester came in 2010 thanks to goals from Tim Cahill and Leighton Baines.

Despite a promising set of fixtures, Everton have taken just five points from their last five fixtures (W1, D2, L2), though that is still an improvement on the three points they'd taken during this part of last season (W1,L4). The Toffees are just two places higher in the table compared to at this stage last season and they've taken six more points whilst boasting a much stronger goal difference. Everton trailed Southampton in 4th place by 15 points after 20 fixtures had been played last season and they're nine points away from the current occupants of 4th place, this season. Everton are still to beat a top half side in 2015/16 whilst all of their victories at this stage of last season had come against sides that went on to eventually finish in the bottom half. Wednesday night will be Everton's 21st league fixture of this season and Manchester City were also the opponents for their 21st match of last season's campaign in a match which saw Steven Naismith equalise to earn Everton a point at Goodison Park and they went on to lose just one of the following four fixtures (W1, D2).

A bit of a tall order but we just have to take whatever confidence we gained in the recent win over them into this match. Maybe we can frustrate them enough to unsettle them, we've still got the firepower to score if we get it right...you never know.

Always a weird one when you play the same team a few times in a short space of time. No real idea what to expect, how this game will affect us or whether it will impact the cup second leg.

Not fearful of City though. For me, there's no reason to think that we can't come out of the three games unbeaten if we set up properly and keep the intensity and organisation of the first semi, and the last part of the Spurs game. Conversely, they could just bum us everywhere.

Logged

Jeff: That's not the way to win.Kathie: Is there a way to win?Jeff: There's a way to lose more slowly.